


many bells down

by coricomile



Category: The Road to El Dorado (2000)
Genre: Dreams, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:34:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28079991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coricomile/pseuds/coricomile
Summary: Tulio is in all of his dreams. Miguel wonders if he appears in Tulio's as well, if maybe they share the nice, sweet spaces outside of being hungry and running for their lives together.
Relationships: Miguel/Tulio (Road to El Dorado)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 71
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	many bells down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [csi_sanders1129](https://archiveofourown.org/users/csi_sanders1129/gifts).



There is a horse. 

Miguel doesn't know what to do with horses at all, but there it sits in the middle of a mud patch, its hair somehow still blindingly white under the foggy sun and beneath the layer of dirt. The horse blinks its big black eyes at him, the bit in its mouth digging in at the corners. Miguel reaches a hand forward to release the ties holding it in but, just as he feels the heat of the horse's breath against his fingers, he hears rain and then Tulio's voice, far away but coming closer. 

"Don't worry, boy," he says, even as the mud patch begins to fade into blurs of brown and green. "I'll be back for you."

Tulio, half dressed, damp, and spitting like a cat, dances around the floor of the hut, one foot in his trousers and the other held above the ground. It's a familiar sight that warms Miguel more than a fire ever could. He rolls onto his side in their bed and props his head up on one palm. His hair falls in his face, in need of a good wash and maybe a cut, but he can see all of Tulio through it and that is enough. When Tulio emerges victorious with his battle of the trousers, Miguel sits up enough to clap. 

"I'm very proud of you," he says. It's worth the effort when Tulio screws his face up and throws one of Miguel's own shirts into his face. "Rude." The cloth tastes a bit like sweat, a bit like dirt. They'll need to go to a river soon to do a proper washing, but it's so _boring_. 

"Put your pants on," Tulio says as he gathers his messy hair into a ponytail. "I've got a lead on a poker game." Miguel wrinkles his nose but puts his pants on. Apparently, there is a hole in the ceiling and the hole in his belly is growing, too. He will play his mandolin for tips while Tulio swindles the dock workers out of their coin, and perhaps they will make enough to get something sweet to go with dinner. 

\---

Tulio is in all of his dreams. Miguel wonders if he appears in Tulio's as well, if maybe they share the nice, sweet spaces outside of being hungry and running for their lives together. If he thinks about it, he has always dreamed of Tulio, long before they met as two shivering teenagers hiding in the same hay bale. There has always been a boy, a man, with long, dark hair and sharp eyes and a sharper tongue inside his head. Maybe it wasn't always Tulio, but he likes to think it was. 

In tonight's dream, they are in the future. Miguel thinks it must be the future, if only for the strange way people are dressed and the little rectangle he pulls from his pocket when it starts buzzing like a hornet. He doesn't know what to do with it, but his hands touch the face of it and hold it to his ear and Tulio's voice is suddenly there. 

"I will kill the next lawyer I have to talk to," Tulio says, and Miguel remembers a shaking, drawn little girl that had found her way into their hut- _apartment_ \- and hid under the stairs until Miguel heard her crying. " _Next of kin_. If she had any next of kin, she wouldn't have broken into our place and lived in the _walls_ for two weeks. I am going to strangle-"

"That might look bad on the forms," Miguel cuts in, mouth moving like he's reading lines from a play. Below him the train rocks as it speeds past buildings he has both seen so many times they've become background noise and never seen before. "I like our place. I would hate to move because you killed a poor lawyer."

"Poor lawyer my ass," Tulio huffs. His voice is strange as it filters through the rectangle, higher and thinner. Miguel aches to hear him for real, to see the pinch of Tulio's mouth as he works himself into a tizzy. 

There's a white horse on the wooden platform when Miguel's body gets off at his stop. It looks up at him, mouth bloodied by its bit, ribs poking out from its sides as it chomps at city weeds. 

He wakes up with Tulio's warm mouth on his throat, his voice just right as he hums his way down to Miguel's chest, lips vibrating against Miguel's skin. Miguel catches all of Tulio between his thighs and laughs when he's bitten right under the ribcage. 

\---

The barber in town likes Miguel. He hates Tulio, but usually Miguel can charm his way into getting them both free haircuts. He's worn his hair long since he was a dirty, too thin child, but while Tulio's stops growing once it reaches his shoulders, Miguel's will grow forever. He likes the way it looks when he can messily braid it to hang down his back, but it's a _liability_ in their line of work. 

He frowns down at the dirty floor as clippings of hair fall onto it. The poor dead things look sad and dull and abandoned as they fall away to be swept up later by the shop boy and thrown away. On haircut day, Tulio always saves enough coin to treat them to something with alcohol or sugar inside. He makes faces at Miguel through the mirror and spends long moments in their hut running his fingers through the chopped off, soft remainder. 

Tulio always gets a close, unfashionable cut and grows it out until he can't ignore it anymore. It saves them on trips to the barber's and he's the one more likely to be in danger of having it pulled. As much as Miguel likes how the shorn back feels under his palms, Tulio is the most handsome when his hair is wild and free around his face, a tangling black mess that only Miguel can tame. 

\---

In tonight's dream, Tulio is a king. He sits tall and regal upon his throne, dressed in purple and gold. Miguel sits at his feet, his own finery heavy on his shoulders. The cloth smells of lavender and his hair, forever long, tickles against his cheeks in the silly fashion he cannot see but knows is over styled. There is something in it that makes him want to sneeze, but his dream self is used to the smell. 

"Next," Tulio says, his voice crisp like the skin of a fresh apple. Miguel wants to look at him, wants to see that beloved face and body in all of its regalia, but his head does not turn away from the ugly masonry doors. 

A beautiful white horse clumps through them, head held high and mouth stained red. Atop it, a beautiful woman hidden only by the fall of her straight, black hair sits proudly, her eyes narrow and her mouth in an almost perfectly straight line. Miguel wants to look at Tulio, _his_ Tulio, wants to tear the woman from the horse and ride far away, warm king body on his shoulder and no destination in mind. The woman does not look at him, eyes only for the king, and Miguel cannot turn his head. 

"This woman is charged with theft and accused of plotting to assassinate the ruler," the man at the foot of the stair to the throne says. "We caught her behind the royal chamber with a blade on her person."

"And I took down three of your men before they caught me," the woman says, her head held high. "I came to ask for assistance."

Miguel meets the black gaze of the horse and wakes up shivering in the cage of Tulio's arms. Guilt turns in his stomach as the dream fades away. He would have helped, he tells himself as he curls up tight around all of Miguel that he can. He just might not have liked it. 

\---

Tulio pretends to be aloof, but Miguel knows him too well. 

For the last week, Miguel has been coughing and sneezing, shivering even beneath the heat of summer. He dreams and sleepwalks and speaks in words that might not be words as he sweats beneath the threadbare covers Tulio keeps piling on top of him. Tulio hovers, his hands skating over Miguel's jerking chest and heaving stomach. Every time Miguel coughs into a cloth, Tulio checks it for red spots. Miguel fights the dizzy spells and sickness with nothing more than will. He won't leave Tulio alone. He _won't_.

"I'll take you to the ends of the world," Tulio says. Miguel thinks that's what he says. His head is dizzy and he cannot see beyond the edge of their bed and his body feels like he's been lit on fire, but Tulio still holds him. "I promise you. Just get better. You have to get better." 

"I want-" Miguel coughs so hard his entire body aches from it, but the press of Tulio's body soothes him. _I want to be with you_ , is what he wants to say, but every time he breathes in he can't stop himself from coughing. Tulio's downturned mouth touches Miguel's sweat heavy forehead and stays, knowing without words. 

Miguel dreams. Tulio in a long, glittering dress, smoke billowing between his painted lips, dancing under lights that flicker in red and blue and gold. Tulio in a wide brimmed hat atop a white horse, a bit of hay between his lips as he holds his hand out for Miguel. Himself only half human, his body made of wire and twine, Tulio's steady human hands building him back into a working thing. He dreams of a woman forming between their bodies in wisps of smoke, shoving them apart as she manifests, speaking in a tongue he cannot understand. He dreams of Gods, blessing and cursing them. 

When the fever passes, Tulio holds Miguel down onto their straw bed and kisses and kisses him, a brand new type of fever that leaves Miguel's head spinning in a different way. He can't draw the breath to say what needs to be said, but Tulio shoves those unspoken words into his body, a complete circle that leaves Miguel's aching body whole. 

\---

Running away from danger is not a new thing. Miguel has been doing it since he first learned how to use his legs and even more since he and Tulio met. With Tulio, it feels less like danger and more like a child's game as he climbs over rooftops and feels the cobblestones jut up under the thin soles of his shoes. All he has to do is chase Tulio through the streets and he will be safe. 

The wind whips up against his face, tangles his hair into a mess as his mandolin thuds against his back. Tulio is the faster runner, but he also has lived in the city longer. He knows the twists and turns, knows what days the fishmonger stacks his crates and when the ships will be docked and what buildings will collapse under the weight of two grown men. Tulio leads and Miguel chases, laughing. 

Miguel holds the map bunched in his hands the whole way and it feels like something from his dreams, too soft and so fragile it may fall apart at the slightest breeze. 

They do not arrive at home. For once, Tulio has failed them and the body of a ship rocks under them and Miguel knows this is where he should be, even though his heart pounds with terror. When he is freed from his barrel prison, he looks up between the slatted bars of their prison and sees a familiar black eyed face. 

"Hello, boy," Miguel says and holds his hand high to touch the raw corner of the white horse's mouth. "I've been waiting for you."

The future is theirs.


End file.
